


To Drown But Not Yet Die

by Rarae



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), The Buried - Freeform, The Corruption, i know theyre called ladybirds in britain dont come at me, ladubugs, mentioned of being buried alive, mentions of debt, mentions of drowing, with some wonderful art in chapter 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:02:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26069173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rarae/pseuds/Rarae
Summary: Statement of Joshua Granger, taken direct from subject August 17th, 2020 regarding unusual encounters with a boat salesman, a horticulturist, and some ladybugs.
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr [@acescard](https://acescard.tumblr.com/) and the fabulous artist at [@scribscrawler](https://scribscrawler.tumblr.com/).

Statement of Joshua Granger, taken direct from subject August 17th, 2020 regarding unusual encounters with a boat salesman, a horticulturist, and some ladybugs.

I’ve never been the squeamish sort, you must understand. I’ve never minded bugs too much or even been intimidated by all the slimy things in the ocean like most of my friends are. I mean, we need bugs for the environment and all that. Not exactly sure  _ why _ , but I know that we do. 

Everything’s like that, whether you believe it or not. Everything has a purpose. Or a niche as they call it in all the environmental classes. Every living thing out there has a job to do. The bees pollinate, the cows give us milk, the wolves make sure the deer don’t overpopulate. Every living thing in nature has a reason they evolved, some purpose to their existence. So I always figured that humans must have as well.

Maybe not every individual person. I doubt even nature is  _ that  _ specific. But human beings in general must. I… must admit that I’m not entirely sure most days what that purpose is. Maintaining the Earth maybe? We’re doing a shit job if that’s it but, you know, maybe. I’m no ecologist.

But this guy,  _ this guy _ . He  _ can’t _ have been part of nature’s plan for humanity. He just… can’t have been.

I guess I’m getting ahead of myself a bit though. Uh, my name’s Joshua, as you know. I live over in the historical district. It’s a nice enough area, if a bit run down and bug-infested. But it’s about a ten minute walk to the beach, which is why I stay there. I’ve taken to renting one of the small motorboats over by the docks some weekends and sailing about a bit. Sometimes I do some fishing or reading while out there, but mostly I just like sitting and watching.

People are so interesting, you know? They do so many funny things when they think people aren’t watching. Especially when they’re out at sea. It’s so lonely out there. I think when people stare too long at the horizon, at the endless sea, that they forget that there are others around them.

Or maybe there aren’t others out there at all. I don’t know.

But, I digress. Point is, one weekend, a couple months ago now, I sailed off about an hour out of shore as I’m in the habit of doing. Not many people out there, which is nice. Except that day there was someone else out there with me.

I didn’t notice him at first, which is a bit odd considering how well you can see everything around you when there are no city buildings in the way. Maybe it was because he was laying down at first? But that doesn’t make sense either since I still would have seen the boat.

Anyways, I ignored the other boat for a while after I noticed it. You must understand— it didn’t look like anyone was in it at first. The weird fucker must have been laying down or something. But, eventually, the boat drifted closer and I could see inside, just a bit.

And,  _ god _ . I want to puke even thinking about it. There was this bloke laying there, just laying in the boat, absolutely  _ covered _ in ladybugs. You couldn’t even see his fucking face there were so many of ‘em. In fact, I couldn’t even tell it was a guy at first. Figured that one out later when— but I’m getting ahead of myself again.

So I see him lying there and the bugs are just crawling and flying around like they haven’t a care in the world. And, like I said before, I don’t mind bugs, especially ladybugs. At least I didn’t mind back then. I thought that they were cute little things and basically harmless. But there were just  _ so many  _ of them. It made me nauseous to look at. And then I thought, oh God, this poor fucker must be  _ dead _ . And the ladybugs are eating him! How were they going to identify the body? Was I going to have to drag him back to shore?

I got a little freaked out thinking about all of it so I called out “ _ Hey!” _ just to make sure, you know? Just to make sure he was actually dead. And the guy just  _ sits up _ ! Sits up! Like he didn’t even care that he was buried alive in motherfucking ladybugs.

And he just stares at me like I was the weirdo, like I was interrupting  _ his _ day. He shook his head and some of the ladybugs flew off his face, enough to make out a few of his features. He was a plain looking sort. Pretty average, hair longer than a guy should have, if you ask me, and a hooked nose. Wouldn’t be winning any beauty awards any time soon though.

Then the guy has the nerve to look at me and ask in this droll, gravely voice, “Can I help you?” Like he wasn’t covered in those red little monsters! It looked like he was Satan or something with how his whole body was turned red with ‘em. 

I was still a little dumbstruck mind you, when I asked him if he knew he was covered in the little devils.

He just stared at me, never did answer my question. Instead he asked me if I liked sailing. I said that I do, that I rented a boat most weekends so I could get out on the water for a little alone time. He told me that I should drop by his shop sometime, that he sold boats and I looked to be the sort who could use a good sturdy boat. I said that I couldn’t afford it. I’m just a bagging clerk, you know. But he said that it didn’t matter and he was sure that he had something that would work with my budget and it would be cheaper than renting two or three times a month anyhow. I said I’d think about it.

We stared at each other a moment before he said that it was a pleasure meeting me but he had to get back to it and he laid down again. It was all a bit surreal, honestly. I didn’t know what to think. I still don’t.

But, by this time, I decided I had had enough of this strange man with his ladybugs so I turned ‘round and headed back to shore, determined to forget the interaction had never happened and half-convinced I had hallucinated the whole thing. By the time I finished docking the boat and started walking back to my flat I had nearly managed to sell myself on the idea that I hadn’t drunk enough water that day and it was all just the heat and the sea water getting to me.

That is… until I saw  _ her. _ Unlike the other guy who looked a right mess as soon as you saw him only appear more normal as you got closer, this person looked perfectly average right until the second you got within touching distance.

I didn’t even notice her at first, except in that passive way you notice most people. Enough to not walk into them but not so much that you could recall any details the second after you pass by them. She had on a red polka-dot sundress. Not uncommon for the beach and I doubt it even would have registered were it not for the strange encounter I had just had.

Regardless, I steeled myself to walk by her, determined not to make the situation out to be more than it was— a fanciful hallucination and a prettily dressed woman. I was succeeding, too, until she turned and looked straight at me, like she was looking deep into my soul and found me lacking. Or rather, like she'd rather something else was there instead of the guts and other gooey bits. I know that doesn’t make much sense, but that’s how it felt.

She looked me up and down and then smiled. It was a very pretty smile but it didn’t reach her eye, of which she only had the one. Her left eye was covered with an eye patch. I think myself a pretty decent bloke so I tried my best not to stare at it, despite how off-putting I found it.

“You like plants?” she asked me, out of the blue and apropos of nothing. I didn’t really know what to say to that so I kept quiet. It didn’t matter though because she kept on talking. “I own a greenhouse, on Sunken Ship Road, out by the community garden,” she told me. “You should come by. You seem the sort who can appreciate getting a little dirty, like my dear friend Marius.”

I just nodded. She nodded back and then continued staring out across the ocean. I turned to see if I could tell what she was staring at, but there was nothing there. In fact, there was nothing at all. In that moment I noticed that it was just the two of us there on the beach, not another soul in sight. Just us, the ocean, and the ever-increasing pressure on my chest, which increasingly felt like there was a boulder sitting on top of it.

I very determinedly turned and finished my walk home and told myself in no uncertain terms that I did  _ not, _ in fact, see a ladybug crawl out of the eye patch and onto the strange woman’s hair.

I didn’t sleep well that night. In fact, I haven’t slept well  _ since _ that night. Every time I lay down I feel a creeping sensation deep in my chest, like there are thousands of tiny little legs trying to break free from my body which encages them. And I try and sit up, but the boulder sitting on my chest returns and it’s like I can’t move, no matter how hard I try I cannot sit up. I tell my fingers to move, to lift even the tiniest amount, but it’s like I’m wading through the ocean depths. Not the shallow shores that humans tend to muck around in and call the depths, but the  _ actual _ depths, the ones hundreds of miles beneath the sea where the pressure would kill a person in an instant, burying them alive in a tomb of water.

But then, eons later, the sun rises and I can move again, like the weight was never there at all. The day just brings new horrors though. I thought it was a strange coincidence at first, but after that day there seemed to me a severe infestation of ladybugs at my flat. I called the landlord and she sent out pest control, for all the good it did.

They were everywhere. I couldn’t take two steps without seeing another one. So I went to the store and bought those sticky traps they make for gnats and a bunch of fly swatters. I must have killed hundreds of the bloody things by now. I put out new sticky traps every morning that they're full by evening and, I’ll tell you another thing, if I had a pence for every nasty little bug I killed with one of those fly swatters I could have paid for them a dozen times over by now. I even tried all the tips and tricks they have online— soap water, apple cider vinegar, cloves. Nothing even fazed the buggers. It was like they were some other breed of bug entirely.

Ugh. Anyways, this continued every night for about two weeks. Plagued by pests during the day and feeling damn near buried alive in my own bed at night. It was enough to drive a man mad.

But I kept thinking about the greenhouse the woman at the beach had mentioned. She was a bit unsettling but in hindsight I thought that maybe I had been a bit unfair and hasty in judging her, what with the whole event out at sea. And I figured that ladybugs are pests for plants so she might know how to get rid of an infestation of them.

So I looked up her shop and the online reviews seemed fair enough. Nobody mentioned anything off about her so I decided to stop by one day after I got off work. I really should have known better… Trusted my instincts and all that.

But I didn’t. The greenhouse seems normal enough on the outside. Plenty of plants, bright blooms, good smelling dirt. In fact, it was the dirt I noticed more than the rest of it. It was darker than most soil you see at plant shops and had an interesting odor that I couldn’t place at the time. All the plants sitting in it were vibrant though, noticeably more so than the plants in pots of normal dirt. I don’t know if that’s important or not. It just struck me as odd.

I didn’t see anyone inside at first so I just wandered around a bit, found a little pepper plant I thought about getting. That is, until I saw a little red speck on the underside of one of the leaves. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I yelped like a little schoolgirl and dropped the pot, shattering it on the ground.

Then, like she materialized out of thin air, the creepy woman from the beach was kneeling in front of me, scooping up the plant and dirt, cooing at it and saying she’d have it fixed up in no time. I apologized and she looked up at me like she just noticed I was there. How that could be, I don’t know. After all, I was the one who dropped the pot in the first place.

She stood up abruptly, which made me step back a bit, bumping into another plant stand that fortunately did  _ not _ meet the same fate as the pepper plant.

“Decided to stop by, did you?” she asked me, cheery as could be. Though, again, the happiness didn’t seem to reach her eye. She was wearing a red sweater and the eye shadow she had on was dark and I found myself staring at it whenever I looked at her. It was like a black spot on her face, mirrored by the black eyepatch and made all the more apparent by the heavy-handed blush she had applied.

I violently suppressed the thought that she looked a bit like a ladybug herself.

I told her that I had remembered what she had said about owning a greenhouse and had found myself with a bit of a ladybug infestation and thought that she, as a purveyor of plants, might know how to take care of the issue.

She didn’t seem to understand, somehow. She told me that ladybugs don’t harm plants, but in fact eat the aphids that  _ do _ harm them. I said that was very interesting and all but they were still overrunning my house. She smiled at me and this time her eyes did seem to reflect the emotion.

It made a shiver run down my spine. Her eyes reminded me of those of a bluebird, of all things, dark and knowing with a single-minded intensity known only to those special few animals who have made their lives next to the careless, lumbering apes that had taken over their world. Few creatures could boast that they were brave enough to live so close to humans, that they were clever and cruel enough to survive living in their backyards.

She hummed at me and nodded like she understood, though I knew that she didn’t, and said she imagined being buried in anything would be disconcerting and perhaps she was somewhat biased towards the red monstrosities as her  _ own _ name was, in fact, Ladybird. That threw me for a moment, but less so than the phasing she had used:  _ buried in ladybugs _ .

Buried.

Buried— a harmless enough word but it struck a chord in me, because that is exactly the feeling I had been experiencing these past few weeks in hell. Like I was being buried alive in bugs during the day and being crushed to death at night, like I was being closed in upon and everything was far too much and I  _ could. Not. Breathe. _

All of a sudden it really was too much. My breaths quickened as the now-familiar pressure on my chest returned. Each intake of air came quick and thready, like a bluebird’s heartbeat, I thought.

I found myself, almost without my consent or knowledge, dashing towards the exit and came-to to find my hand reaching towards the doorknob. But, before I could turn it, in walked a man carrying a bag of dirt over his shoulder. I didn’t recognize him at first. He was average height and thin, but you wouldn’t think so with the bulk of his pea coat, which overlaid at least three other layers of clothing. The thought of  _ how on Earth could this man breath under all those clothes _ passed through my mind before I noticed his face.

He had long brown hair that reached to his shoulders, grey, sunken-in eyes, and a strongly hooked nose— just like the man who I saw in the boat. I went to rush by him but a strong hand on my shoulder stopped me.

I heard the woman — Ladybird— call out. “Oh, hello Marius! I wasn’t expecting you until later. Do you have more soil for me?”

“Only the finest for my Ladybird,” he called back. “Made with compost of the highest caliber,” he said with a smile he directed towards me. I didn’t return the gesture.

“Did you think more about my offer?” he asked. I replied that I didn’t know what he was talking about. A lie, of course. As if I could forget even a single second of that encounter. He seemed to know it too as he simply told me that he knew how it was to be buried in debt and that if I ever felt like getting out from under my boat rental fees to just let him know.

It didn’t occur to me until just a few days ago to wonder how he knew how the boat rentals were eating up most all of my funds.

I shoved off his hand on my shoulder and rushed straight home. Truth be told, I don’t even remember how I got there, just that I left and then that I arrived. The ladybugs were everywhere, of course, their chitin shells crunching each step I took. I got down the rum from the cabinet and honestly don’t remember anything else from that night.

This continued for many more weeks as I tried to ignore it all. I know you must think me a fool to believe I could  _ wish _ away the invasions of my mind and my home, but you really can become accustomed to anything, given enough time. Even fear can become familiar, like an old friend you pass in the streets.

I don’t really know how but I did find myself in possession of a small motorboat during this time from some company called Brynmore Boats. In all honesty, I was better off renting. The monthly payment may have been less than half the cost of a three hour rental, but it more than made up for it in the repair bills I was forced to fork over every month. The money I sunk just to stop the damned thing from sinking was drowning me even more in debt.

All of this to say, I was under a lot of pressure and I had heard that there were some lovely walking trails about twenty minutes away. Peaceful and isolated, which is just what I thought I needed.

So I packed up one say, just enough water and food for a day-long hike and went. Didn’t tell anyone where I was going or nothin’. I wasn’t in the mood for company and hadn’t been for a long while. Still am not, actually.

But I made it to the trails and it was so peaceful I felt the knot in my chest loosen for the first time in months, not all the way but enough that I finally noticed the tension I’d been carrying. The birds were chirping and the forest was bright and peaceful and for a few hours it seemed like the world had been righted again, like nothing could encroach on this calm I had found myself in.

It didn’t last though. Like passing through the eye of the storm, the calm passed and all at once I noticed that I had quite lost my way. The trail I would have sworn I was just on was nowhere to be seen. In fact, there was nothing  _ anywhere _ to be seen. The birdsong and squirrel chirps had faded, leaving nothing but a cold silence and the strange whisper of leaves.

I kept walking and assured myself that the trail was only a few miles long and I would have to find my way out of the thicket eventually. It wasn’t until I passed the same fallen hornet’s nest for the third time that I noticed the absence of any life at all. No birds, no bees, no beetles, nothing. Even the spider webs were hauntingly barren.

And had the trees always been that tall? They reached out of the ground like the fingers of the dead, tall brown stalks that pushed themselves out of the dirt, towards a sky that they would and could never reach. Nevertheless, they blocked out the whole of the sky in their greediness, forcing out all light until I was only left with the darkness in undergrowth and the trunks. 

I ignored the absence of the spiders in the webs and told myself that they must be more active than normal. It had been an abnormally hot summer after all, almost cloying in its mugginess. That must be the reason there were no bugs around. The birds were just sleeping. The trees had always been like this. They must have been. They must.

They still blocked out the sky though and I glared scornfully at them. I kept walking and cursed the trees and their greediness. How dare they keep me from the sun? Didn’t they realize they were burying me alive, amongst their cold and barren corpses. That I needed the sun too? Like worms completing for the rain that falls, I felt like a wretched thing, thrashing about, desperate to escape my invisible confines. 

I kept walking. And was that? It was. On one of the trees that were burying me in cruel darkness. A red dot on a leaf.

The relief I felt at another sign of animal life was brief as I sensed that it did not share my joy at seeing another creature. In fact, I had the overwhelming feeling that I had just made an irreversible mistake noticing the little thing. I kept walking.

Where but a few minutes prior I was the only life around, there was now no way I could look that was absent ladybirds. They flitted around my face like gnats did a dying animal and I could see in their black faces that they were looking forward to when I, too, would be nothing but a corpse because then they would finally have what they wanted all along. A feast and a body to burrow into, to bury themselves in and inhabit with all of their thousands of squirming legs and twitching antennae.

I knew that if they chose I would be overwhelmed within seconds and they wanted nothing more than to swarm my walking corpse. I don’t know what stayed their hand that day, only that whatever it is will not work a second time.

As quickly as the forest life faded it came back again with a birdsong so sweet that I nearly cried as I ran to my car and back to my flat with the ladybugs that, while ambivalent to my death, did not actively desire it.

I haven’t been back to the forest since that day and the ladybugs still infest my house while at night I lay unable to breathe as I try to dig myself out of the debt I find myself in. I have lived months in this state, as if frozen in time, living the same days again and again. Sometimes I think that I could live the rest of my life like this. But… I... I find myself certain that this can’t continue as it is.

I still take my boat out most weekends and have seen that Marius fellow a few times since then, not always with ladybugs surrounding him, but always near the sea, far enough out that no one would notice him drowning. I don’t know why I notice that, but I do, and I find myself going a little farther each time I take my boat out. The leak is getting worse and I find myself unwilling to fix it.

If you try and find me come next week, I don’t think you’ll succeed. It’s just a feeling I have, but I rather think that both my pursuers' patience with me and enjoyment of my torment is coming to a close.

I think I’ll take the boat one last time tomorrow.

Statement ends. Joshua Granger, as far as we can tell, was last seen the day this statement was given. No one saw him leave on his boat, but the boat is missing as well, leading to the conclusion that he was lost at sea. His disappearance is very similar to those of several others who have bought or rented boats from one Brynmore Boats, who, it turns out, both rented and sold boats to Mr. Granger and is owned by Marius Brynmore. 

Marius Brynmore is quite clearly an avatar of The Buried. The strange woman Mr. Granger mentioned, Ladybird, is on record of owning a greenhouse in the area and has been found in association with several disappearances herself. Her association with ladybugs leads me to believe her connection is with The Corruption. The two appear to work together at times when hunting the same mark, though not always. 

Further investigation required. End recording.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some art of our favorite avatars! Courtesy of @scribscrawler on tumblr.

Meet Marius Brynmore, avatar of the Buried. He enjoys selling and renting people faulty boats and then burying them under debt before taking them out to sea and drowning them. He also enjoys being buried alive under Ladybug's ladybugs.

And here are a few Ladybugs for your viewing pleasure! She owns a greenhouse with more than a few bugs and some suspiciously good soil...

**Author's Note:**

> I thrive off comments and kudos and please go give my lovely artist friend some love too!


End file.
